Home Editor's Essays What Would Have Happened in This Town If Parks Had Run as...

What Would Have Happened in This Town If Parks Had Run as a Republican?

193
0
SHARE

[img]1|left|||no_popup[/img]

Just as I am frustrated with my fellow Jews who sing one note every election, I presume that sensible blacks are equally exasperated with the low-hanging fruit in their community who consider it their cultural obligation to vote Democratic.

Sort of like watching the least gifted of your ex-wives win a beauty contest. Are the judges standing too far back? What did they possibly see in her that I missed?

I genuinely do not understand what motivates a Jew or a black, smart enough to stop on red and go on green, to instinctively vote Democratic every year. Don’t they read newspapers? Track the internet? Watch television? Or do they really spend their days reclining on a drenched log in a rainforest spitting pumpkin seeds onto a mouldy bear?

Which brings me to the case of Bernard Parks, candidate for County Supervisor, accused by his opponent of not only having Republican instincts but of having actually affiliated with a pretty conservative political party in former times.


In Quest of Truth

I may be wrong, but I believe that in his soul, Mr. Parks is a Republican. At least until after Mr. Obama takes power, this still is not a sin. A reckless blunder, yes. But a crime? No.

The trouble in this region of Los Angeles is that unless you swear fealty to one-way liberalism until your dead body turns cold, you could not get elected dog catcher — oops, that’s the wrong thing to say in this town.

Mr. Parks could have parroted every silly promise that Mr. Obama slicked America’s countriest bumpkins into swallowing and still not won tonight’s election if he had run as a republican. (If we spell the party in lower-case letters, perhaps the political police will not notice.)

I believe state Sen. Mark Ridley-Thomas will win this race comfortably. Given his natural political talents, he will make Angelenos forget about Yvonne Brathwaite Burke by this time next week.



Be Yourself? Not If You Want to Be Competitive

Still, it is sad that a man cannot say, and act out, what he really is without being skewered beyond recognition.

If Mr. Parks had run as a Republican, this might have enabled him to draw stronger lines of distinction with Sen. Ridley-Thomas. But no political consultant who wants to be employed again would allow a serious candidate in this corner of town to run on anything but a Democratic ticket.

Surely some voters will consider the Ridley-Thomas/Parks race the same doddering way all of us approach an election between two judges. You ask, whose name sounds as if he belongs to my people? If there are people undecided about the White House race, where the contrasts are irreconcilable, be certain many Angelenos will be confused by the Supervisor race.

Except for passionate activists, how many voters will be able to clearly distinguish? If Mr. Parks had run as a Republican, voters would have gained greater clarity. On the other hand, given the nature of this crowd of partisans, he probably would have resembled a destroyed discount rack at Macy’s after a full day of desperate bargain-hunting by serious-sized ladies charging through stacks of helpless clothes.

This is hardly a parochial dilemma.

If Mr. Obama had been a Republican and Ms. Palin a Democrat, by the time the liberal jackals of journalism had dropped all of their bombs, Mr. Obama could not have been elected Vice Mayor of Wasilla, and Ms. Palin would have been hoisted onto so many fat shoulders that her feet wouldn’t touch the ground for the next four election cycles.


Thank You for Carrying Me

As late as this morning, Mr. Obama and his media sycophants staged the final act of their little charade. You may not know that hard-edged Mr. Obama is a certified control freak who punishes non-kowtowing journalists. He has not held a press conference in months, but it has not been reported, except in Oshkosh.

And so two days after ousting three reporters, from New York, Washington and Dallas, because their newspapers did not endorse him, He Who Is Without Sin made a rare foray, we are told, to the press section of his campaign plane. Said he wanted to thank reporters for treating him with cashmere kid gloves — just kidding. But he did thank them.

“You guys,” said the most delicately handled, best-protected nominee in American history, “have been gracious and understanding.”

My golly, Murgatroyd, I would have sprung for a root beer for all of them, too, if 99 percent of reporters had devoted my entire campaign to writing only flattering stories about me, blowing off my lies and denying my deceptions. Even after all that, betcha the ever-angry and arrogant Michelle still will be mad at this country tonight. If she only knew how difficult it was to be a Republican and smile…